Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies

I tasted the best ginger molasses cookie at a cider mill a few years back and have sought the perfect recipe since. As a Christmas gift, a colleague left me a 1/2 dozen cookies in my office and the perfect recipe was found. I profusely thanked them for the cookies and nicely asked for the recipe so I could recreate the gingery goodness myself. I was so appreciative and happy when they simply sent me the link to this amazing recipe. If you want a perfectly balanced ginger molasses cookie with a little spice, a crunch on the outside and chewy on the inside, this Epicurious recipe is the one. It's even worth chopping up the candied ginger into tiny little pieces to get this taste.

Within a few days, I went home to my nice new kitchen to make them prior to Christmas and gifted some to my colleagues at the office so I wouldn't eat them all myself. I don't know about serving them with apples and cheddar as the recipe mentions, but a cold glass of milk or a hot cup of coffee is perfect.

Strawberry-Shortcake in a Cookie

I wanted to come up with something to bake for my dad for Father's day and received the "Cookie of the Day" e-mail from Martha Stewart for Strawberry-Shortcake Cookies. I don't always try the recipes or even save them to try later, but it's always fun to see different cookie ideas. Many of them are not traditional cookies, but it's always good to go beyond the everyday chocolate chip cookie and try something different. And, that's what I did.

My dad LOVES strawberry shortcake and could have it for dessert almost every evening (and most likely does most days). So, I thought it would be fun to try this recipe to give him his strawberry-shortcake in a cute little cookie.

I go to the farmer's market at least once a week and sometimes several times a week. With strawberries now in season, this was a good recipe to try. I also ended up buying over a flat of strawberries this past week, so there are a few more strawberry creations on their way. Fresh Michigan strawberries are SO much better than the grocery store variety shipped in from California or who knows where else. Even just having the flat of strawberries sitting out on the counter in my kitchen for a few hours, the sweet fresh smell was permeating through the house and brought me back to the days when my sister and I would pick strawberries as a summer job growing up.





This was definitely more of a biscuit-cookie and included the dry ingredient in which butter was cut in and then the fresh diced strawberries.



I made them without the use of the Kitchen aid as I didn't want to crush the strawberries. I cut in the butter with my pastry blender and then the cream was added. This was making the making of the shortcake and the whipped cream is just folded into it to give it a nice rich creamy flavor.




I used my cookie scoop to measure out the batter and place on the pan. I was careful not to have the fresh strawberries end up on the bottom of the cookie so they wouldn't burn while the cookie was baking. Before they went in the oven, I sprinkled some caster sugar (really fine sugar) on top which adds a nice glistening sugar and crunchy texture to the cookie.



Here are the cookies just out of the oven. They turned out nicely and tasted great, but were best warm. They also don't last too long with the fresh strawberry, but I suppose you could try freezing some, which I suggested to my dad if he wasn't able to finish them off very soon.




I have a few of the pretty strawberry quart baskets and chose to package them in there like the lovely quart of fresh berries used to make them.

Oatmeal Cookies

I meant to make this cookie in May and time got the best of me with the other projects I decided to take on. I love this oatmeal cookie recipe and got hungry for them after I lit an oatmeal cookie candle I have. I lit it when I had company coming over as it makes the house smell like you've been baking. I felt like I was cheating with the candle, so I wanted to make a batch of these cookies and recreate the real smell! It's simple in that it is purely just oatmeal, but sometimes simple is just better. I grew up with oatmeal cookies loaded with coconut, chocolate chips, raisins and sometimes nuts and while I love those, this is definitely my go-to oatmeal cookie recipe now. They are perfectly crispy on the edges with a soft center. And, since they are dredged in powdered sugar before baking, they come out of the oven with a warm sugary coating and they just melt in your mouth.

The batter is very easy to make and I always use my mini cookie scoop to keep the size of the cookies consistent.

I rolled each cookie scoop into a ball and gave them a nice thick coating of powdered sugar.

They went on Silpat lined baking sheets and I flattened each of them slightly with the back of a spoon.

Here they are fresh out of the oven. Beautiful cracks in the powdered sugar coating as they spread out when they baked and a slightly gooey warm sugar coating.

I made a lot of them so I had plenty to send some home with family that visited and a nice big container for my husband to take to the office.

I think these cookies would be great with maybe a homemade caramel or cinnamon homemade ice cream sandwiched between them. I have some other ideas for fun ice cream sandwiches and plan to make some in the warm summer months to enjoy with the kids.

Cookie of the Month - Chocolate Mint Sandwiches

We had company visiting for Easter weekend that I know likes the combination of chocolate and mint. So, I thought this would be the perfect cookie to try to make for them until they got here and I discovered they had given up cookies for lent. However, these will keep well in the refrigerator for a few days and I'll send some home with them! I made these chocolate mint sandwiches from a Martha Stewart recipe in her Cookies book and they are in the rich and dense section. Boy - is that true! First of all, the chocolate cookie dough was like the consistency of fudge and there are two of them with chocolate mint ganache in between and then a melted chocolate covering. They were very good, but a bit of chocolate overload for me. I'll stick with an After Eight mint for my chocolate mint fix. However, they are yummy and were very fun to make, although more time consuming than a normal drop cookie.

After making the dough, I flatted it into two discs and it needed to be refrigerated to chill. I made this a day in advance and chilled it overnight.

The dough was to be rolled out to about a 1/4 inch thickness so I used my roller bands to help me keep the dough a consistent thickness. It's still tough to get the consistency on the edges, but it worked out pretty well. I used a plain round cutter to cut all the cookies and baked them on Silpat lined baking sheets.

Now, this is when you'd be done with most cookies, but these needed putting together. We need to make the sandwiches! I made the chocolate mint ganache using Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate and used pure mint extract. I put a teaspoon of ganache in each cookie and squished it together to spread with another cookie on top. They went in the refrigerator for a while to chill and adhere before topping with even more chocolate. The topping was simply melted semi-sweet chocolate. I dipped each sandwich in and then placed them on a wire rack to and put them back in the refrigerator to harden. Before I put them in the refrigerator, I tried one and this was when they tasted the best to me. It was a bit messy since the chocolate was still soft on top, but that was the perfect time. You have a fudgy chocolate mint sandwich with warm melted chocolate on top of it! I thought the cookies would be crispy, but they were so nice and chewy even after being refrigerated. However, for serving, I would suggest taking them out of the frig to come to room temperature for a while. Or, do these as the dessert for a fondue party and don't put the topping on!

Peanut Butter Cookies, Take Two

I had a few occassions this past week that called for bringing along a hostess gift and had a few extra jars of peanut butter in the pantry, so I decided to try my peanut butter cookie recipe this time around. I used real butter (the only way to go) and the consistency of the dough was much better. I also had used crunchy peanut butter the first go around and much prefer using creamy peanut butter for a smooth texture to the cookie.


I love using a small ice cream scoop to drop the cookies, then I rolled them all out before doing the criss-cross pattern with the fork. I tried some rolled in sugar and some without and we voted for going without in the future. The sugar makes them glisten and adds a bit of a crunch, but without they are nice and simple and seem to stay a bit chewier on the inside.

Using the small ice cream scoop or cookie scoop is not only easier, but helps you to get nice uniform sized cookies. They don't always need to be perfect, but it helps for packaging them. We tested just a few and the rest were packaged to take to my friends that I was visiting for playdates. I love using different boxes like this and place individual sheets of parchment between the cookies. If I don't have these boxes, I stack the cookies in a cellophane bag and secure it with a tie or pretty ribbon.

Cookie of the Month - Peanut Butter

Starting this month, I'm going to make at least one cookie to feature each month. Some of them I may have made previously (but can't resist making again) or I will try a different variation or some completely new cookie recipe that I've never attempted previously. This past weekend I made peanut butter cookies because we had a craving for something sweet at my mum's and happened to have all the ingredients to make these, including just enough peanut butter. Peanut butter cookies with the classic criss-cross pattern with the fork is something I always remember my mum making growing up. The cookies my mum would typically make from time to time were chocolate chip, peanut butter, no-bake and oatmeal with raisins, chocolate chips and coconut. So, while we visited after dinner, I made the peanut butter cookie dough, rolled balls of dough in sugar and flattened them with the criss-cross pattern to bake. The pattern didn't hold well with this recipe and that may be due to the fact that we used margarine instead of butter as it was all we had on hand. However, they were the perfect consistency and sure satisfied our sweet tooth with a cold glass of milk.

Homemade Teething Biscuits

Of any baby I've been around the past year, I have the biggest teether out there. Audrey started getting teeth at only 4 months and she has almost all of them at 13 months! I found a simple recipe for homemade teething biscuits that involves just four natural ingredients to make these yummy sweet biscuits. Using a "donut" shaped cookie cutter and taking out the middle makes them easy for her to hold onto as well. One of the best things is that it takes her a good 15 minutes or so to finish one so I have time to clean up after a meal and do the dishes while she enjoys it. You should see her face when she sees I'm bringing her one - a big dimply smile!